To return to normal

2020 turned out to be amazing. The most interesting, exciting, terrible year in this decade - and, perhaps, one such one is enough. It seems to me that his important result was the need for normality.

I really want to live again an ordinary life that the pandemic has almost canceled. Go to visit, visit the theater, crowds at fairs and concerts, sit in restaurants, see smiles on your faces.

Even more than in everyday life, I want normality in the public sphere. In 2020, the borders of the norm in Russia completely blurred, the children's question "what is good and what is bad" now sounds like rhetorical-at least from official and close to them. “They would like to kill - killed,” President Putin said, and the propagandists repeated after him. None of them said that killing is bad. Killing citizens of your country is even worse. To kill their citizens using state resources and in order to prevent the change of power in the country is generally an outrageous evil.

This is a dangerous thing, because if we forget that [has always been] good and what is bad, what is normal and what is not, then the norm itself will change once. Because normal - this is ordinary, what we are used to. The shift has been happening for a long time, and here you are a striking example: we are sincerely rejoiced when an innocent person after an unfair prosecution leaves the court freely - with a conditional term or a fine. This is really sincere, honest joy, however, I experienced it on myself. When I was awarded a half -million fine instead of a six -year colony, I was happy.

The justification in court, alas, has ceased to be the norm

And it should be indignant. Because the previous, initial norm suggests that the innocent should not be subjected to criminal prosecution and certainly the court must pass an acquittal if there is no evidence of guilt. But the justification in court, alas, ceased to be the norm.

There was once a normal financing of socially useful things. When the iron curtain fell, the inhabitants of Russia saw unknown institutions abroad, which support political education, environmental monitoring, the introduction of progressive social practices, and so on. There were no such funds in our country, historically did not work out, and it seemed good to take money in the West to support patients with HIV or the fight against drug addiction. Now any foreign grant turns the organization into a foreign agent, read: the enemy, and the society seems to get used to it.

An even more dangerous shift goes in politics. The "normal" norm is what is recorded in the basic law. The people are a source of power, citizens are a subject of politics, they have the right to express their will in elections, rallies and any other legal methods. This means that the authorities do not have the right to interfere with people to go out onto the streets, run for deputies, put forward their candidates, and unite in order to achieve political goals.

The President of Russia did not say: "It is impossible to beat people on the streets. You can’t torture people in areas." Instead, the Russian President offered the President of Belarus money

There is no more such norm in practice - “normal” now has become an unsuccessful coordination of public actions. We reconciled that the authorities prohibit rallies, processions and pickets, and the Ministry of Justice does not register the party if the Kremlin does not like it. They reconciled with mandatory detentions, administrative fines and, it seems, already a criminal article. Three years ago, the protocols for a single picket were still nonsense, and now a law is adopted, which equates a single picket with a mass event. In line - the same law about photographs in social networks, the protocols are already drawing up .

Worse, we get used to the idea that they will definitely beat on the "disagreed" rally. Mass beating of demonstrators by the police and subsequent criminal cases - against demonstrators, of course - are already perceived as the norm. The Belarusian example only strengthened this deviation, because the Russian president did not say: "It is impossible to beat people on the streets. You can’t torture people in areas." Instead, the Russian President offered the President of Belarus money.

Another step towards the complete perversion of normality in politics was made at Putin’s press conference. The guarantor, forgiven the Constitution, placed an equal sign between opposition policy and the machinations of foreign intelligence services. And there is not far from betrayal. And betrayal is the worst sin, "and traitors must be punished ." Hence, it is not long to agree that the attempt on opposition and investigators who open crimes and corruption meet the "state interests" in the sense that the Kremlin understands them.

Let's remember what is good and what is really bad

The new package of repressive laws, just adopted by the State Duma, serves the same purpose - to move the normal framework. Street policy, and a political life that was not agreed with the presidential administration should disappear. Citizens are sequentially instilled in the idea that any protest is inspired from abroad that any investigations were paid for the CIA, that every oppositionist is a criminal with a criminal past or future. You can accustom to this - all power tools are available. Gets used to it - he will fall in love, the habit is the second nature.

No. It is important to say in time: "No. Let's get back to normal." Let's remember what is good and what is really bad. Competition in politics is good. Political murder is bad.

It is normal: to go to rallies, to vote for whom you want, to advance to deputies, to fight for power, to fight against corruption, to demand a change in stateliness in the social sphere, to want to live, to treat society ulcers due to any money.

It is not normal - it is: to pursue the leaders of the opposition with the help of special services, to apply military poisonous substances, lie, suck national resources, fine innocent, put innocent in prison, beat people at rallies.

Let's still live like normal people. In an extreme case, if this year insists so much, you can slightly move the boundaries of the norm in everyday life-let's get used to, so be it, wear masks and work on the remote. This may be even good.

Svetlana Prokopyeva - journalist

The "Opinion" expressed in the heading of the point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial office